On June 25, 2026, we opened our new special exhibition “Grossmann200”. It is dedicated to one of the founding fathers of the Glashütte watch industry. It focuses on Moritz Grossmann as a person in more detail than ever before and shows that he was much more than a gifted watchmaker. How great his reputation still was three decades after his death is shown by the fact that a monument was to be erected to him in the heart of the watchmaking town. The designs from that time will be shown to the public for the first time in the new exhibition.
200 years ago, on March 27, 1826, Moritz Grossmann was born in Dresden. He had a lasting influence on German watchmaking and established its international reputation. He was much more than an outstanding watchmaker. He was a successful manufacturer, an accomplished technician, a brilliant inventor and a passionate teacher. As the founder of the German School of Watchmaking in Glashütte, he created an institution that systematically imparted knowledge and developed watchmaking from a purely experiential profession to a well-founded technical discipline. Innovative tools and measuring instruments developed by him – especially with metric displays – became established in watch production and their application was taught in teaching. Moritz Grossmann also left his mark as an author and theorist. His writings testify to a deep understanding of mechanical relationships and to the desire to make knowledge accessible and verifiable. Throughout his life, he was also heavily involved in Glashütte at the municipal level, be it as a town councillor, as a founding member of the volunteer fire brigade or as the initiator of numerous associations.
Grossmann’s merits remained unforgotten, so that three decades after his death, a monument was to be erected to him in the watchmaking town. However, the project was not realized. A total of ten drafts from that time have been preserved and have been slumbering in the archive until now. With the current special exhibition, they are now being presented to the public for the first time. It will be interesting to see where in Glashütte the monument should have stood and what it could have looked like. However, with the founding of the German School of Watchmaking Glashütte in 1878, Moritz Grossmann set himself a monument during his lifetime. Even today, apprentices are trained in the building, which is not only a watch museum. For the opening of the German Watch Museum Glashütte in 2008, the “Glashütte Original Watchmaking School Alfred Helwig” also moved into the building, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.
From June 26, 2026, the exhibition will be open to everyone during the regular opening hours of the Watch Museum.
Impressions from the exhibition and the opening:
(Photos: Holm Helis)
